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Topic: Mad cow disease freak out (Read 365 times)

I ate beef today for the first time in a while and for some reason I became super paranoid about mad cow disease again. I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown until I looked it up online and saw that there's only been 4 cases of it in the United States (it's believed that they all contracted it abroad) and that there's no evidence that you can get it from eating muscle meat (steak, ground beef, etc) — the infected meat is the brain, spine, and spinal fluid — don't know if that's true (I read it on webmd and an article from the times) but I'm going to try to make myself realize that I'm perfectly fine. Easier said than done. Any advice would be much appreciated as I am still somewhat on edge

MOST anxiety occurs on a subconscious level. JUST because you don't feel consciously anxious or had a day or two of calm doesn't mean your mind & body are relaxed. It can take months of reduced anxiety before a body goes back to a more non-reactive state

I guess the super vague symptoms like anxiety caused me to freak out. I guess a lot of people would have an issue if my fear had any validity to it Since I ate at a Chinese restaurant that is frequented by probably hundreds of people every day. I probably have a greater chance at winning the lottery than ending up with mad cow disease.

The disease has never been diagnosed in a human in the United States, according to the CDC, and only three cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or mad cow) have popped up in American cows. (They were caught before they entered the food supply.) In theory, it's possible that if humans eat beef damaged by BSE, they may develop variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) -- a fatal brain disorder that often lies dormant for a decade before symptoms appear. But even in the United Kingdom, home to 98 percent of all BSE cases linked to beef (or blood transfusions from a person who's been exposed to the tainted meat), the CDC estimates the risk for humans is just 1 in every 10 billion servings of beef. A few years ago there was worry about supplements and cosmetics made with certain cattle parts, but the Food and Drug Administration stopped the use of those parts."

Unfortunately, I would be lying if I said that I was no longer worried, but I am probably 70% better than I was earlier. I'm fixated on the what if and that minuscule chance that I could end up with it

I had a glass of wine and really thought about it and sort of came to the rational conclusion that this fear is observed. The restaurant I ate at is frequented by several hundred people every week, so there would be tons of people ending up with mad cow disease, and the fact that it is so exceedingly rare made me realize that worrying about it is a complete waste of time